Catelyn’s scared of society’s image of what a bastard is. This is why she treats Jon the way she does, because of her classist ass belief that Jon is inherently evil by nature of his birth. Shes not truly scared of anything hes done within those 14 years he’s lived in Winterfell. But Jon? The way he feels about her isn’t connected to some bullshit societal prejudice. That comes from her, and how shes reacted to him. (Which clearly still has an impact on him even after he no longer lives with the Starks) But yea somehow shes in the right for treating him like shit and hes in the wrong for? Existing within her general vicinity? Despite the fact that he had no choice. Would they have preferred Ned kicked him out? For an ADULTS comfort? Ah come to the asoiaf fandom where we think children should accommodate the adult because we are ass backwards.

Yall do realize just because someone lives in a time/place where the prejudices they hold are common does not mean they are absolved of the hurt they have caused, right?

I don't understand why we have to get all technical about whether or not Cat's treatment of Jon constitutes an abuse. You don't think the label of abuse technically, strictly applies to the situation? Okay, fine. Let's say it's not abuse because GRRM says so, whatever.

Cat, the lady of the house, intentionally inflicted misery on an innocent, helpless kid, out of spite for things that were not his fault. She intentionally caused him immeasurable suffering, she intentionally made him feel inferior to her kids and a pariah. She intentionally turned her kids against him and thank god it only worked with one kid (Sansa). She intentionally rejected his very presence to his face by refusing to call him by his name, as if he was merely a fly to her. She intentionally told this kid to his face that she wishes he was in a coma instead of her own son. She intentionally made sure this kid had no home. She was pleased when this kid was sent off to die.

But sure she didn't abuse him. Okay. She just made the life of this kid a living hell, traumatizing him forever.

In reddit you can't post about how Catelyn's behaviour affected Arya negatively without Catelyn stans downvoting you and telling you how Catelyn is a Saint compared to Cersei or Tywin or Randyll and how Arya should be grateful that Catelyn and Mordane's behaviour just destroyed her self-esteem because at least they didn't try to kill her/hit her/poison her.

Like, it's amazing how Catelyn stans go around and rather defend this grown arse woman against her nine/twelve year old child.

I can totally understand being angry at the fact that your husband (allegedly) had an illegitimate child with another woman while you were pregnant with his legitimate kid. It really is understandable.

But it’s not a valid reason to hate the said child. It’s not a reason to mistreat him, threaten him, tell him you wish he was dead. It’s not the child’s fucking fault, his only “mistake” was being born.

Be angry at your husband. Hate your husband. Tell him that you hate the fact that he (allegedly) slept with another woman behind your back and then came back home with a son.

It’s literally so hypocritical that Catelyn hates Jon yet doesn’t seem angry at Ned for being quite literally the reason to why Jon exists in the first place.

(yes i’m aware that Jon isn’t Ned’s son but Cat doesn’t know that so the point stays)

People going "both sides were equally bad" with Cat and Jon are so disturbing because one was literally an adult and the other was literally a child. One was an adult who made a child terrified of her and who basically told him she wished he was dead and the other was a child who did his best to stay out of the adult's way and to never antagonize her, and who was being blamed for something he had no part in.

Nothing can justify grown ass Catelyn beefing with a fourteen year old boy over something he had no control over

She should have directed that energy towards her cheating husband.

Jon. It should have been you.

Mayhaps the whore will die in childbirth.

Catelyn: Robb, Now that Tyrion has married Sansa you need to pick a new heir since we don’t want the Lannisters to get Winterfell and you don’t have a son yet.

Robb: Cool. I’ll pick Jon.

Catelyn: 😡😡😡

Catelyn: What about your sister? What about her rights?

I mean, I do get Catelyn’s POV and I sympathize with her, but rereading the part where she tells Ned she won’t have Jon in Winterfell always pisses me off. Especially when my siblings are close to his age, like, that’s a baby, ma’am. My mind has been changed on Catelyn in the past few years, but I’m never going to get over her. She is not invited to my house.

But it also brings up the fact that Ned is the real villain of this story, because he should have planned for Jon’s future from the start. It’s really stupid how he just sort of never seems to have considered ANY of the kids’ inevitable need for resources.

Like, for example, Arya and Sansa should have dowries and lands of their own being held in consideration at this point, and SOMETHING(land, keeps, money) should have been put aside for the boys, including Jon(which would have been standard practice IRL). It’s also pretty silly how Robb’s marriage apparently isn’t even being considered at this point?

Arya comes across as even more of a spoilt brat on the reread. I realized this isn’t just a class. There are a bunch of ladies with them, indicating that Cersei must have brought SOME kind of household, or that she has one for Myrcella. So Arya throws her tantrum in what amounts to a social gathering and leaves her sister and the septa to clean up afterwards.

Also, cute when she does her little sulk about how Sansa can’t run a household because she’s not as good at math as Arya, knowing that in a few books Sansa will be running the Eyrie easily. So Arya’s chapter here is basically her being wrong about nearly everything and having a fit over it.

It still bothers me how no one seems to notice that Arya does a few stitches, notices that they’re crooked, and just gives up. I think ppl would be more sympathetic to her plight in universe if she actually tried. It seems like if she’s not immediately good at stuff, she just decides it’s stupid.

Also, why do ppl expect me to believe Arya’s being bullied? This whole thing would have been a perfect opportunity for some mean girl style bullying and the worst that happens is that Jeyne smirks a little. And given the fact that Arya thinks of Jeyne with nothing but rudeness, that’s not surprising.

She’s honestly one of the most annoying characters in this series and it makes sense that she’s so close to Jon, because my god, this dude is really just… he’s the equivalent of styrofoam touching styrofoam in human form.

As a human being with my own sorrows I can even experience some empathy towards Catelyn with regards to her feelings for Jon, but the one thing I cannot understand is why be so unnecessary cruel? Her not letting him to see Bran and say goodbye is totally abusive and unfair. Jon's fear before entering Bran's chamber shows that it's far from being the firts time and that he was treated this way for all his life, she even didn't call him by his own name.

That brought her nothing, that didn't change anything. My heart bleeds for Jon and I hate that b*tch.

i love house stark but i couldn’t like cat in the show or books. it irked me the way she treated jon and i know she thought of him as a bastard but she was so cruel to him especially in the show.

Understandable, I think Cat is a character that people either love or hate. I do think they made her worse in the show though (we’re not counting lady stoneheart in the books lol). Sometimes I like her sometimes I don’t 🤷🏽‍♀️.

I think, for me, I understand her feelings about Jon and why she directs those feelings at him and not on Ned but it still unfair to treat a child like that and personally it just heightens my dislike for Ned because he never stepped in or had a conversation in her. He didn’t have to tell her of Jon’s true parentage but he didn’t always have to shut her down.

The Catelyn never abused Jon conversation really goes out the window for me when Jon said SHE MADE HIM FEEL GUILTY FOR EATING. I know most of us are joking when we say he’s dramatic about her but some of you really think she was justified in her treatment toward him and um… well, no.

And “GRRM said she didn’t abuse him” yeah I know but GRRM also said Daenerys/Drogo wasn’t rape and that men who beat their wives can still be heroes. GRRM is obviously the author who decides what’s canon ie Catelyn never beat Jon, but he’s not the man who decides what abuse is and the way their way relationship is described is clearly abusive.

I mean, yeah. I agree. I will repeat what I said in my initial post, I don't care about specifically defining her behavior towards Jon, and I do take into account the author's intent. But the fact is that she was an adult, in a position of authority over a child, and she intentionally made him suffer for it throughout his childhood and adolescence and then rejoiced over his death penalty, or, if we want to be more exact, actively advocated for it. I'm sorry, these are facts. You can still like Cat or her chapters but this is Cat's characterization and if you want to be more chill with it because she is a woman/victim of patriarchy/redhead/whatever reason, then you can be, but this is personal to you. Snape is one of my fav characters in HP but he bullied children for a living and that's just a fact, I won't deny it. I liked the character but he was an asshole. I love Jaime but he did actively try to murder a kid. I won't deny that.

Being a woman is actually not an excuse for character flaws, because women are people and they should be judged or appreciated for their personality and not for their vagina. It goes both ways. Like tell me you like Cat despite the fact that she is a conservative, privileged and occasionally cruel person. Tell me you like her because she is strong, dutiful and loyal to her family, tell me you like her because you like her chapters. Don't tell me you like her because she's a woman and therefore can do no wrong. The reality is this : Cat actively ruined the life of an orphan kid that happens to be a fandom favorite and a main character. I am sorry, but of course she is going to get hate.

I actually don't hate her because I take into consideration the social norms in universe, and I do have sympathy for her. No, she is not the devil incarnate. If you want to think so, you can, but again that's something personal to you and does not apply to the story.

Also we like what we like. I love Ned as a character, I am pretty indifferent towards Cat. The reason I like him better is not because he is better than Cat or less responsible for all the shit that happened to Jon than Cat. I just like him better. It is that simple.

The fact that Robb was so quick to notice that something was wrong with Jon and asked how his mother behaved tells me how perspective he was of his mother shite treatment of his brother.

Which makes the fact that later he names Jon his heir even sweeter. You go, Robb, fuck your mother's bigotry.

i do not like the dany and rhaenyra stans that hate on sansa and alicent for "bowing down to the patriarchy" and "not stopping their oppression". dany goes through a traumatic marriage at thirteen in which she is regularly raped to the point of contemplating suicide. she forces herself to love her husband and make him love her to spare herself more abuse. she then gets pregnant with his child and goes through a horrific birthing and loses her baby at only fourteen. this whole situation is very, very common for women in their society. the only difference is that daenerys gains three dragons at the end. they empower her and help her move forward to claim her 'birthright'. let's looks at sansa in comparison. she is sold off as a child bride at twelve years old. her betrothed arranges for her to be publicly stripped and beaten. she is then married to the son of the man that killed her brother. her new husband sexually assaults her on her wedding night, but does not rape her. pretty much every man that she encounters tries to sexually harass and assault her. she escapes her marriage and is now being groomed by her mothers childhood friend. she knows that his feelings and actions towards her are wrong, but he's all she has. sansa has to use "a womans courtesy and grace" to get herself out of potentially harmful situations. we also see this with dany's 'seduction' of drogo. the only difference is that sansa is never given dragons to protect herself like daenerys is. she still has to rely on herself. people call rhaeneryas dragon moments 'badass' and put alicent down for sticking to the patriarchy. alicent sticks up for herself by calmly telling her husband that he can take her daughter away from her when she is cold and dead in her grave. that is the only thing she can do in that situation, and its a a risky thing to say to her groomer, abuser and husband (who is also the king) but she still does it to protect her daughter. when alicent is feeling lost, she prays to the mother. when rhaenerya is feeling lost, she rides syrax. alicent and sansa (and even cersei) are not afforded with magic and fantasy to escape their abuse, they have to do the best they can with what little power the average noble woman is given in their society.

I'll never understand how people think Ned and Catelyn Stark were good parents. They failed all of their older children, and Jon, and Theon, and would have surely failed their younger children directly if given time.

And this isn't just a "they were cruel to Jon" thing, because they were, Catelyn was an outright abuser and Ned wasn't much better (who the fuck makes their "oh shit, gotta get my son/nephew out of Winterfell" plan be sending a fourteen year old to the fucking Wall? He should have immediately disabused Jon of that idea and sent him to ward at any of the numerous amounts of bannermen who would be honored to take in any part of Ned's family, or, hell, to the Flints or Mormonts or someone who straight up wouldn't care about his birth).

But, anyway, it's Sansa who is the main example of what bad parents they are.

Catelyn was raised as the Tully heir. She knew what Southron politics were like. Literally she had no trouble thinking that the Queen had helped assassinate a Lord Paramount and Hand of the King! And still she took a girl she raised to be naive to a dangerous point and let her be betrothed to the future King, and let her be taken South to maybe the most dangerous place in the land.

Ned was the same. He knew that even though the Targaryens were gone, the South was still dangerous. He knew what the Lannisters were fine doing to children and how easily oathbreaking was excused by knights. Maybe he had far less contact with Sansa because she was a daughter and not his heir, but literally just talking to her about what to expect in the South should have made him decide she shouldn't go.

And it's not as if Robert would have actually forced the betrothal through, or even if he tried, they could have pushed it off years more or sent Sansa first to her grandfather and uncles in the Riverlands to get more acquainted with the South, or any other number of solutions. Hell, ask for Tommen to be given lands and betrothed to Arya instead, even, and that would take enough years they could find a way out of it. Robert's a selfish asshole, but he wanted Ned relatively happy, and he wanted Ned in King's Landing probably more than anything else.

If they were both better parents, they would have fought tooth and nail to keep Sansa in the North or raised her to actually understand life isn't a fairytale. The books keep insisting kids her age are nearly adults, so Sansa should have been told some hard truths about life a year or two before the King came to Winterfell, and at the very least once they realized the King was coming to Winterfell.

And I could rant about the ways they failed Robb and Arya, too, but then I'd be here forever lol

Lady Catelyn Stark 🤝 Ser Otto Hightower

Selfish Andals trying their best to kick Targaryen princes (Jon/Daemon) out of their ancestral homes (Winterfell/Red Keep)